


Recovery

by avesmx (tinymacaroni)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dissociation, Drinking to Cope, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Insomnia, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy, Trauma and recovery, Underage Drinking, also there won't be any graphic sex/violence, and probably implied sex and/or non-implied making out, but there will be discussion of past graphic violence, consider yourself warned, i swear the main goal here is for the kids to be recovering, there will absolutely be spoilers for the whole series so, wow this sounds terrible when i tag all of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 00:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15919101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinymacaroni/pseuds/avesmx
Summary: Depending on where you began the story, it was about healing.





	Recovery

**Author's Note:**

> There's a lot of trauma in this series, and I wanted to explore how the characters would recover from that. I'm planning to do this in a series of short scenes starting just a few weeks after Gansey dies and is brought back, and hopefully ending sometime after the epilogue leaves off. I'm hoping to update weekly, but we'll see!

Gansey couldn’t sleep. This wasn’t unusual, he had been an insomniac for almost eight years, ever since the first time he’d died. But for the last few weeks, ever since the second time he died, he found it hard to even stay still, to rest. He felt like his clothes were all too small, too constricting, but it wasn’t his clothes, it was his _skin_. It was like he no longer fit within his own body, and he was always restless, always fidgeting, trying to escape the confines of himself. Careful not to wake Blue or Henry, he slipped out of bed and padded over to the window, resting his forehead against the cool glass, watching the fog of his breath block out the view of the street below. He closed his eyes, and he could feel the hum of energy through his core, the pulse of the ley line. It was weaker now than it had been before, he knew, even though he hadn’t been able to feel it before. He just knew. He reached out, letting the energy wash over him, taking a strange sort of comfort in it. He had always wanted to be connected to the ley line, and in a way he always had been. But now he was truly part of it, and it a part of him, and no one could tell him precisely what that entailed. No scholars, no psychics, no dreamers or magicians had any clue – it was unprecedented. He had been saved by the power of the ley line before, of course, but this was different. This time he’d already been gone, completely, and it had brought him _back_. That wasn’t supposed to happen, but happen it did, and they all just had to hope there would be no dire consequences to their actions.

He sighed and turned back towards the bed in the middle of the room, Blue and Henry curled together under several blankets, keeping the cold night air at bay. They looked so peaceful, asleep and safe in the knowledge that they all had each other, that they would continue to have each other. Blue and Gansey, and later Adam, had all shared the knowledge that Gansey would die sometime that year, but knowing didn’t make it any easier. Though, he supposed, neither did not knowing – it certainly hadn’t helped Ronan. They were a family, the five of them, and Gansey had been the one who brought them all together. Losing him, he knew, had opened something raw and painful in each of them, wounds that would take time to heal, even now that he was back. He hated being the cause of so much pain, no matter how many times he told himself it had been necessary: if he hadn’t sacrificed himself, they all would have been killed, and the demon would have unmade all of Cabeswater, maybe even all of Henrietta if it hadn’t been stopped. But still, seeing the pain behind Ronan’s eyes when he looked at Gansey and remembered his corpse, seeing the shaky breaths Blue took whenever her memories overtook her, seeing Adam tense at any mention of the topic and Henry try so hard to change the subject – how could he _not_ blame himself?

“Mn...Gansey? ‘S that you?” The sound of Blue’s whispered voice, thick with sleep, pulled him from his thoughts. She pushed herself up on her hands and looked at him, her hair sticking up in all directions without her many clips to push it into place.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I can go downstairs if I’m being too noisy.”

“No, ‘s fine, you didn’t wake me up. Just...woke myself up, I guess.” She glanced past him, taking one of those deep, shaky breaths. She’d been dreaming about him, and not in the fun way.

“Oh.” He stood there for a moment, not sure what to do or say, knowing he couldn’t fix everything with a snap of his fingers but desperately wishing he could.

“Come to bed,” Blue whispered, patting the space on the bed between her and Henry. “You couldn’t wake him up if you tried, and even if you can’t get to sleep it’ll be better than moping by the window.” She grinned, and he knew she was right.

He gingerly climbed onto the bed, trying not to jostle Henry too much (though Blue was right, he could sleep through just about anything), and slipped under the covers between his partners. Blue was right beside him, and Henry unconsciously pressed closer to him, forehead against his shoulder, an arm draped over Gansey’s chest. “Hey, Jane,” he started as she mirrored Henry’s pose, though her other arm looped under his shoulder and she idly stroked his hair with one hand, the other threading her fingers through Henry’s over Gansey’s chest. “Tell me a story.”

“About what?”

“Anything. Anything but dead Welsh kings and magic forests. Something about you, or your family, or a fairytale. Anything that’ll keep my mind occupied.”

She nodded, and after a beat she said “Alright,” and launched into a story from her childhood – the time she had been sent home for pushing a kid off the monkey bars, and then the time she’d gotten soup all over the kitchen (even on the ceiling!), and then the time her and Maura had taken a trip to the lake and she’d found a baby duck, and then the time she…

He wasn’t sure which of them fell asleep first, but eventually they had both joined Henry in being fast asleep, and they slept fitted together, like the pieces of a puzzle.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked the first chapter, feel free to let me know what you thought!


End file.
